Here’s some winter wizardry. J.K. Rowling was going to wait until Christmas Day to unload the good news. But apparently she just couldn’t wait.

Rowling and her publishers at Scholastic Corp. have announced that the wildly successful British author has finished the manuscript for the fifth book in the “Harry Potter” series.

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” has been delivered to Rowling’s English-language publishers — Scholastic in this country and Bloomsbury in Britain.

The chronicle of what amounts to Harry’s junior year in high school will be released one minute past midnight July 16 in this country and in Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

The book, which follows celebrated wizard Harry, his friends Ron and Hermione and a whole host of otherworldly creatures, is the penultimate installment of the projected seven-book series.

On her Web site (www.jkrowling.com), Rowling has stated that the half-blood prince of the title is neither Harry nor the evil Lord Voldemort.

Also on the site, a young reader writes to Rowling and asks, “Are you going to kill any more characters?” Her response: “Yes. Sorry.”

DAME EDNA DOES ROSSINI

POSSUMS, BEWARE. Dame Edna Everage, one of Australia’s most exotic exports, will make a guest appearance in the Metropolitan Opera’s New Year’s Eve gala performance of Rossini’s comic opera “Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville).”

Known for her purple hair and oversized rhinestone eyeglasses, Dame Edna (aka impersonator Barry Humphries) will appear in Act II and sing during the “music lesson scene” in which beautiful Rosina (Katarina Karneus) and Count Almaviva (Matthew Polenzani) are found in a lovers’ tryst, it was announced Monday.

Dame Edna is starring in “Dame Edna: Back With a Vengeance!” on Broadway. Her first Broadway gig, “Dame Edna: The Royal Tour,” was a Tony-winning hit.

FROM PIER 1 TO JENNY CRAIG

KIRSTIE ALLEY may be set to star in a Showtime series called “Fat Actress,” but the former “Cheers” star doesn’t plan to stay that way for long.

Weight-loss company Jenny Craig announced Monday that Alley would be the new celebrity spokesperson. Ads, which will chronicle Alley’s weight-loss efforts, will begin airing Jan. 10.

“I had a great time getting fat, and now I’m going to have an even greater time losing weight,” said Alley in the press release announcing the move.

Alley told NBC’s Matt Lauer on Sunday that she gained 70 pounds since her last show “Veronica’s Closet” went off the air in 2000.

What has she been up to since then?

“Apparently eating,” she said.

Her weight topped at 203, she told Lauer, and since that high point she’s lost 10 pounds.

Alley was also the spokeswoman for Pier 1 Imports from 2002 to this year, when she was replaced by “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’s” Thom Filicia. Since Alley was booted, Pier 1 sales have dropped by 43 percent, according to Adweek magazine, which listed the company’s dropping her as one of its 10 worst blunders of 2004.

Alley’s show “Fat Actress,” which she describes as 80 percent fiction and 20 percent true, premieres in March.

HOLIDAY IN HOSPITAL

TV PERSONALITY-PRODUCER Dick Clark will spend Christmas, and perhaps New Year’s Eve, in a hospital where he’s recovering from a mild stroke, his spokesman said Tuesday.

Clark, who suffered the stroke Dec. 6, is out of the intensive care unit and “doing some rehab,” said publicist Paul Shefrin.

He will remain hospitalized through Christmas, and will be watching his annual New Year’s Eve television special either from his hospital bed or at home in Malibu, Shefrin said.

“The doctors have told him how thrilled they are with his progress,” said Shefrin, who wouldn’t give any details about the impact of the stroke or discuss whether there was paralysis.

“His brain is 100 percent there,” Shefrin said.

He said doctors hadn’t given Clark, 75, a release date yet.

“It’s been overwhelming in terms of support and well wishes,” Shefrin said of the avalanche of cards, letters and e-mails that Clark has received from friends and fans.

“There are hundreds, probably thousands, with the magic of e-mail. He’s going to have an awful lot of thank-you cards to write,” he said.

Regis Philbin will host ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2005” Dec. 31 from New York’s Times Square. Singer Ashlee Simpson will host the West Coast part of the show.

(Click here if you are unable to view this photo gallery on your mobile device) The Ruth Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek celebrates the life of its founder Ruth Bancroft who died at 109 on November 26, 2017. The Ruth Bancroft Garden is a nonprofit public dry garden that was planted by Mrs. Ruth Bancroft in 1972 and was opened to the...